The soap world was a-buzz at the end of last month with the news that Jonathan Jackson(pictured left, photo credit Carol Kaelson/ABC) was back in as Lucky Spencer on General Hospital, and Greg Vaughan was out. I spoke with Jonathan last week about his return to the show. The interview will be printed in its entirety on Oct. 23, but for now, here's a bit of the interview to whet your appetite:

Acting alongside old friends helped smooth the transition for Jonathan. “Working with Tony (Geary, Luke Spencer) was really awesome,” he reveals. “It was a fun dynamic having that history with him, and yet it’s been about 10 years since we’ve actually worked together. And yet everything was right there. The same goes for working with Becky (Herbst, Elizabeth Webber) — I was able to settle in really quickly.”

In respect to the Lucky/Elizabeth/Nikolas love triangle, Jonathan is eager to see where it all ends up. “I am jumping into a moving stream when it comes to all of that. There is definitely a lot of tension there to work with, and it’ll be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out.”

Jonathan is eager to get back to basics as far as Lucky’s family and love life is concerned. “There’s a lot available to work with. The relationship with Luke, there’s a lot that could happen there. And I am a big fan of the love story between Lucky and Elizabeth, so there’s a lot of potential there for tapping into some of those original elements we had going.”

WHAT:A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans to meet one of daytime soap's hottest stars, Bryan Dattilo who plays Lucas on Days of Our Lives.

Bryan will be in McDonough, Georgia, as part of Soap Opera Digest magazine's "Shop Like a Soap Star" national tour. The star will be signing autographs and posing for pictures with his fans.WHEN:Saturday, October 17th from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Monday, October 12, 2009

ABC has confirmed that Rebecca Budig is returning to All My Children as Greenlee Smythe. She was presumed dead last February when Kendall ran Greenlee's motorcycle off the road. Headwriter Charles Pratt Jr. confirmed: "Greenlee didn't die but is being cared for by Nurse Gayle in Gloucester on orders from Dr. David Hayward."

It has been whispered about for weeks, and now it is official: Eric Braeden who has starred as Victor Newman on the #1 rated soap The Young and the Restless, a role he originated in February 1980, has departed the soap after being asked to take a huge salary cut in the middle of his contract.

While it is not unusual in these economic times to ask to take a salary cut when renegotiating one's contract (see Jess Walton and Melody Thomas Scott), it's quite unheard of to be asked to take a pay cut on an already determined salary, and in the middle of one's contract.

I'll be talking with Eric later this week about it, and will bring you the full story ASAP!

Courtney Thorne-Smith (pictured left, photos courtesy Lifetime Television) is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Allison Parker on the popular nighttime soap opera Melrose Place from 1992 to 1997. She then honed her comedic chops on the ABC sitcom According to Jim from 2001 to 2009. Now she is starring in an original Lifetime Television movie called Sorority Wars, playing Lutie Snow, a woman who desperately wants her college freshman daughter, Katie, to join the sorority she co-founded, the Delta house.

Courtney was excited to try something new with Jim ending its eight-year run. She reveals: “Doing Sorority Wars was really fun — it has a lot of good stories within the movie. When I first read it, I thought it was sort of a lark, but once I started working on it, I started noticing all the stories about friendship, the mother-daughter relationship and being true to yourself. I thought, ‘Wow, it’s actually really good.’ I was really impressed the more I got into it.”

Playing the mom to a college-age daughter was a new challenge for Courtney, and she was more than happy to take it on. “I played the young ingénue for so long, and when you’re the ingénue, you are the grounding, normal person in a sea of crazies. With Lutie — well, “crazy” is a strong word — she is really neurotic, and she lives in the past.

“She is still so involved with her sorority; it’s like she thinks she is still in the sorority. It’s the most important thing in her life besides her daughter. She’s really tightly wound, and I liked that I’d really got to play a character. It was so much fun for me.”

Was it difficult for Courtney to tap into a part of herself to be able to empathize with Lutie’s obsession with her old sorority and her daughter’s future place in it? “It was hard until I realized that Lutie wanted this to be something that she shared with her daughter. Her sorority was where she felt most important and the fact that if her daughter didn’t make that same choice, then what would they share?

“Lutie never created anything else for herself in later life. She feels rejected when her daughter doesn’t want what she has to offer — and it’s heartbreaking when you think about it that way.”

Courtney enjoyed acting with her co-star, Lucy Hale, who plays her daughter, Katie. Lucy is best known for her role on the critically acclaimed and now-defunct comedy-drama “Privileged.” Courtney gushes: “She is so solid. I kept telling her, ‘Don’t worry about getting another series; you’re going to be a movie star!’ Her work is very honest. And she’s so smart. She’s going to go far — mark my words!”

While Courtney did have fun on the set, it also was a sort of learning experience for her. “What I learned from Lutie is that you really have to keep your life going, keep it on a forward path. That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to give everything to my son, because I do, but you need to have a full life. It doesn’t help you to get stuck in the past.

“It’s like, what if I were still wearing my Melrose Place baseball cap and asking people to call me Allison? It wouldn’t work. I’ve moved on. Even though with the new Melrose Place, it’s HARD to move on. You just have to move on and keep your life going in a positive direction.”

You can see for yourself that Courtney Thorne-Smith has moved on in her new movie, Sorority Wars, which premieres Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the Lifetime Television network.